The inter-dealer broking business is often seen as the wild west of financial services. It is there that some of the worst discrimination cases seem to happen, that traders are most foul-mouthed and that client entertainments are most risqué. But even in the inter-dealer broking sector, hiring a contract killer seems a little over the top.

This is what’s alleged to have happened in the case of Robin Clark, the broker who was shot in the leg by a masked man outside a train station in Essex in January. Clark’s former colleague, Lee Victory, has reportedly been arrested on charges of conspiracy to murder relating to the incident, which left Clark with a fist-sized lump of flesh missing from his leg and nearly killed him. Clark and Victory worked together at inter-dealer broking firm BGC Partners, where Clark was head of the euro desk and Victory was a ‘veteran employee.’

Victory’s motive for the attempted assassination was allegedly Clark’s sexist treatment of his 23 year-old blonde daughter, Danielle. Attractive Danielle Victory was given a job on Clark’s desk, whereupon Clark reportedly made lewd suggestions and attempted to take a photograph up her skirt. The two men fell out and shortly after that, Clark left BGC for a £400k job at brokerage firm RP Martin. Victory cannot have shot Clark himself because at the time of the alleged contract shooting he was away ‘cage fighting in Dubai’… Clarke has since been tormented at his new job by colleagues playing ‘pranks’ and shouting ‘bang’ behind him whilst wearing balaclavas. The whole incident sounds like warning to anyone who thought inter-dealer broking firms were salubrious places to work.

Separately, recruitment firm Morgan McKinley has issued some new figures for the number of finance jobs on offer in London. Last month, it estimates that there were 8,442 financial services jobs on offer in the city, up from 7,623 in January. That sounds impressive. It also jars with figures released a few weeks ago by recruitment firm Astbury Marsden, which estimated that 3,220 new finance jobs were created in London in February. Someone, somewhere, seems to have miscalculated.

Meanwhile:

Barclays’ Antony Jenkins will cash in £4.7m of shares this week. (Sunday Times)

Goldman Sachs partners exercised more than 4 million options that were awarded at the end of 2008, reaping $175m in the process. (Bloomberg)